


the push and pull, the balanced edge

by Visardist



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Facial Shaving, Femdom Shuri, Knifeplay, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 03:26:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20302678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Visardist/pseuds/Visardist
Summary: Shuri drops by to get her mind off things; Bucky obliges.





	the push and pull, the balanced edge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionessvalenti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/gifts).

Shuri visits him seldom, preoccupied with her work in her laboratory, and he prefers the quiet of the outskirts. His neighbours don't bother him, and there's a certain comfort about not needing to spend time with others except when he needs advice about the goats, or if one of them needs a hand (and he'd made the first joke about that, which served to make the adults laugh even if the children hadn't learned English idioms yet).

It's a comfortable existence. He doesn't need more than that yet.

She had tested his trigger words, the first time he woke in Wakanda. He'd tensed in expectation of stopping himself. The women behind her with their spears, too, had braced themselves. But nothing. All seemed well.

When he had shaken her hand in thanks, her smile was sweet, a little cheeky, but her eyes gleamed.

She is sitting on his bed, when he returns to his hut. The jar of honeycomb he'd been saving is open, and she's brought bread, most of a torn loaf sitting on his table. She looks up from the display of a ballgame on her wrist when he taps at the doorway to announce himself, though he knows she'd heard him approaching.

"Sergeant Barnes."

He sets down his load and goes to her, looming over her as she looks up at him. This is usual when she addresses him this way. As a patient-cum-guest of the royal family, he is Bucky, can be a little more familiar, a little closer. As the Winter Soldier, he is simultaneously too distant and too close. Whichever she dictates.

"Princess." He doesn't move as she puts the piece of bread she'd been holding in her mouth, fingers sticky with beads of honey, and reaches her clean hand almost to his chin, forcing him to lift it in order to avoid her touch, to bare his throat. Her fingertips barely brush the stubble under his chin. "I didn't think you'd be visiting again so soon."

"It's better than listening to them argue," she confides, her sticky hand hovering close to his mouth. This he doesn't avoid, waiting for her to bring it closer. He knows he'll get his turn. "Mother believes we should respect his wish to die, but the River Tribe insists that he got his death. That he washed up on their shores alive simply means that death isn't ready for him yet."

This gives him pause. He doesn't move, but something in his face gives him away, because she frowns, taking both hands from him. "What, Sergeant?"

He licks his lips, wanting the taste of honey. He looks down at her again, tries to parse his thoughts, put them in some order that will make sense to her. It's difficult. He can't do it as a sergeant.

When he goes to his knees she puts her hand on his mouth. This is a deviation, but she is going with it. The sucking of sweetness from each finger is slow, thoughtful, his eyes cast down from her curious face. When finally he's done, he opens his mouth to speak, then closes it. He can't quite articulate it yet.

"Well?"

"I… your cousin. He's like me." Like me, Bucky/Sergeant/Soldier. When he's on his knees like this he _should_ be the Soldier. But he's muddled right now. Can't disentangle the differences clearly. Needs some clarity. She clicks her tongue.

“N’jadaka? He’s headstrong, reckless. He was in his own mind all the while.” She runs her wet fingers over his stubble again, then stands. “Where’s your kit? Perhaps you need more time.”

Shaving is difficult, so he generally doesn’t bother doing it properly. He’s let his neighbour help him occasionally, trimming his beard when the man is sick of looking at the foreigner’s random hacking with a pair of scissors in the mirror. When Shuri shaves him, she shaves him clean, the way he used to be. He likes the way she looks at him, when she’s done. His neighbour uses a fancy electric razor, but Shuri is much more hands-on.

She tilts her head when he puts the mouthguard firmly on the table instead of in his mouth as usual, but says nothing, continuing the routine of stropping and lathering. It’s a strange day. He unwinds his robe carefully, letting the cloth fall loose over his belt so he's bare-chested, and sits in the chair, tucking the cloth neatly away as best he can.

The chair is much like the one he used to be strapped in. He asked for it to be so, save for the restraints. There are none on this chair. It looks out of place among the more Wakandan-style furniture they gave to him. He always feels out of place in it himself, but less so when Shuri straddles him, beginning to lather his face. She keeps him there, and he keeps himself there. A straight razor can be deadly, but she’s the one person he trusts with it at his throat.

“So, Soldier,” comes her murmur as his eyes close, feeling the smooth glide of foam and bristles. “You and N’jadaka, you say the two of you are the same. Somehow there must be more to it.”

He waits until she lifts the brush away to answer. “It’s not… he’s not the same as me now, or me with Hydra. Just… when I fell, in the war. When I was pulled out the first time. That’s what he’s like. How he’s like me.”

She stills astride him, her weight unbalanced on him where she’s leaning over to put the mug of foam down again. Carefully, he lifts his hand off the armrest, puts it on her hip, keeping her steady, his thumb on bare skin where her midriff shows. Her balance shifts again, leaning closer, one hand on his shoulder as she begins to smooth lather on his face again.

“I should have made that connection,” she says, her voice more firm than before. “Though we won’t be replacing his arm with another or brainwashing him.” She smooths the last of the lather and puts the brush down. He knows the razor is coming, so he opens his eyes, watches her open it and place the blade gently at his cheek. In this they are chest to chest, her attention entirely on his face and the razor.

He isn’t supposed to talk now. That’s what the mouthguard is usually for.

This, at least, is familiar territory. He smiles as she draws the first stroke, earning him a pinch when she takes the blade away to begin the second, though her lips curl in return. When she’s halfway through the second, his hand on her hip glides up her skin, very carefully. He likes to know he can push her. She likes to know she can be pushed.

He times it just right, sneaking up and under her top just as she removes the blade from his skin. She manages to complete the arc of movement without jerking too badly, hand on his shoulder, the only thing bracing her right now. “_Soldier_.” Voice still firm, an undercurrent of laughter there. It’s nice to have that. Playing at danger with her.

He can’t answer her, but he winks in acknowledgement, letting her continue shaving him as he cups her breast, tries to distract her as best he can. She’s cut him before, doing this. It gets easier each time, expecting the risk, knowing the extent of it. Like this he’s not quite the Winter Soldier, too disobedient, pushing back too gently against her control. There is all he wants to say, waiting on his tongue, eager to get out without the weight of the mouthguard tamping it down.

When she reaches for a towel to wipe the lather away, he moves too quickly for her to reach it. It’s easy enough to shift his hand around to her back, press her close. Steal a kiss from her startled lips and watch her grimace at the bitter taste of soap.

“That’s enough,” she says, swiping at him backhandedly once she’s done spitting out soap. He raises his hand in surrender, leaning back as she pushes his chest. “You’re being impertinent, Soldier.”

“It’s ‘insubordinate’,” he says helpfully as she picks up the blade again to shave under his chin. This is the part he savours. “Do the Dora not talk back enough for you to remember that?”

“They know when’s the right time to hold their tongue.” He can feel the edge of the blade on his throat as she works, deliberately hovering over his adam’s apple as he swallows. Steady and sure, even when his breath hitches as she rolls her hips. The blade never nicks him. Her eyes gleam in delighted concentration, the kind of expression he imagines she has in the lab.

He’s quiet when she finally puts the razor down, watching her with intent, still at last. After each wipe of the towel, she runs the pad of her thumb over his skin. Pats his cheek when she’s done. Runs her hand down his neck, thumb lingering in the hollow between his collar bones, and down his arm to tug his hand away from the armrest and between her thighs, finally.

They haven't tried this angle before, not in the chair, even though she's sat this way to shave him since the first time. She lets him tug at her pants, unravel the complicated bindings that are some Wakandan fashion trend he isn't familiar with. His own robe is made to stay in place, the way she likes it, so she can stain him thoroughly first. He likes looking at it after, when she's gone, when he's lingering over his laundry.

Already wet when he slips fingers past the split-crotch of her underwear. She doesn't let his fingers linger too long, pushes down on his shoulders to lift herself up slightly so he knows to settle his hand back on her hip, sits back down, rubs herself against him. It's strange, another piece of the blurring of the two hims they play with, and the singular Bucky between the two. When she rides him it's usually in his bed, besting him when he's menacing an important royal figure, disobedient and underestimating her. In the chair as the Soldier he strains against the bonds of her command, a little rougher, a little more unhappily obedient, until she orders him to bend her over.

She licks his ear, breath stuttering as they move together. He feels her reach her arm out, but doesn't know what she picks up until it's at his throat. The razor, again.

"Can't tell if I'm more frustrated or you are," he tells her, his smile lopsided, feeling the flat of the blade on his adam's apple, moving with his voice. "Spoiled you for all your other fellas and gals, did I?"

"It's been a trying time," she murmurs back, voice dipping low as she comes close. "I need all hands on deck, even if you're short one." This startles a laugh out of him, enough that she jerks the razor away, though not enough to avoid the smallest nick. Sighing, she puts the razor down, and leans in to kiss the drop of blood away.

They frot like this, a hand or a blade at his throat alternately, getting her off twice before she finally deigns to rearrange his clothing enough to sink down on him properly. Still in the liminal space where he’s not quite a danger and she’s close to a threat, him nipping teasingly at her skin where he can, her rougher, biting at his ear, fierce on his mouth. When she comes again, she rearranges his robe back the way it should be, only a few tugs before he’s staining the cloth himself.

She looks a sight, standing over him, sweat gleaming on her skin. They grin at each other, her relaxed and him relieved, before she leans to kiss his smooth cheek and he rises to arrange her clothing to her instructions.

“Mind if I ask you something, princess?” he asks as he knots the last part into place. Standing up again, still a mess, he steps back as if he isn’t disheveled and unfit for public consumption.

She tips her head, pinning a braid back where it’s come down from her bun. “What question could you have for me now?”

“Your cousin. You told me what your mom wants, and you told me what those people caring for him, the River Tribe, what they want. But you never told me what you want.”

She looks up at him, and he can’t quite read her expression. But she shrugs. “T’challa wants him to heal, and I… well, I’m not happy, to tell you the truth. I don’t want him to _die_, but it will be a problem, keeping him in Wakanda. Honestly I might absorb him into the harem, no one’s going to question it too loudly.” She quirks an eyebrow. “Unless you want a roommate.”

He holds up his hand as if to ward the absent prisoner off. “I’m only sharing you, not my space.”

“Tch. Fine, fine. Go wash up.” She turns, with a final wave, and walks out, ready to fly back to the city.

**Author's Note:**

> This didn't turn out as Dark Fuck Princess Shuri as I wanted, but she does have an actual harem that Bucky is technically part of, only he doesn't live with everyone else. Assume handwavey timeline things to fit with CW and Killmonger surviving somehow.


End file.
